Woodward book breaks 93-year publishing record

Bob Woodward’s new book, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” sold more than 750,000 copies through its first day of release, the most for any title in Simon & Schuster history, according to the 94-year-old publisher.

The investigative book by the veteran Watergate reporter, who has written books about every administration dating back to President Nixon, was powered by excerpts published before the book’s public release Tuesday and President Trump’s public rejection of it. Trump called the book “a con on the public” consisting of quotes that are “made up frauds” designed to boost Democrats ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

{mosads}The 750,000-plus copies sold combines sales of print copies, ebooks and audiobooks, according to a statement by Simon & Schuster.

The publisher also announced that it ordered a ninth printing, sending the total number of hardcover copies in print above 1.15 million.

“Based on immense pre-publication and ongoing interest, the reading public clearly has an enormous appetite for what we believe, as Woodward says, is ‘a pivot point in history,'” said Simon & Schuster President Jonathan Karp in a Wednesday statement.

Barnes & Noble, meanwhile, said “Fear” has had the “fastest sales for an adult title” since July 2015.

Woodward stands by his reporting, which paints a picture of a dysfunctional Trump White House and a novice president who is often at odds with top officials in his administration.

Some officials, including chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, White House staff secretary Rob Porter and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have all publicly disputed accounts pertaining to them in the book.

On Tuesday, Woodward pushed back in an interview with The New York Times, stating a “key” official in the administration privately told him that the book’s details are “1,000 percent true,” while publicly dismissing them.

“Fear” comes on the heels of former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman’s tell-all book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” released in August, and columnist Michael Wolff’s “Fire & Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which broke records for publisher Henry Holt in January.